JEB BUSH, FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I`ve been the guy that`s taken him on. Ever ready, it`s very high energy, Donald.

(LAUGHTER)

I think I did a fine job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you writing all this down?

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Let me grab my pen.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was Carly Fiorina who ran away with the headlines.

CARLY FIORINA, FORMER BUSINESS EXECUTIVE: Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That terse rebuttal to his disparaging comments about her.

TRUMP: She`s got a beautiful face and I think she`s a beautiful woman.

CLINTON: You know, this is just a silly season.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope we`re looking for substance and not celebrity.

TRUMP: Tom Brady, he endorsed me yesterday.

CONAN O`BRIEN, COMEDIAN & TELEVISION HOST: Which is really weird because I thought Brady didn`t like things that are filled with too much air. So –

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the Summer of Trump over?

CLINTON: Yes, this is a huge election, you never know what might happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Donald Trump has apparently run out of new material for speech, and so he made the mistake in New Hampshire tonight of just handing over his appearance to the audience to let them ask questions.

And his first questioner who Trump chose because he said “I like this guy”, pulled back the curtain on the hatred that is the jet-fuel of the Trump for president campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: OK, this man, I like this guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Amen, OK? We have a problem in this country, it`s called Muslims. We know our current president is one.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he`s not even an American.

TRUMP: We need this question –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Birth certificate –

TRUMP: This is the –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man –

TRUMP: First question –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That`s my question. When can we get rid of them?

TRUMP: We`re going to be looking at a lot of different things. And you know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there.

We`re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Eight years ago, John McCain modeled what every presidential candidate needs to say in that situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t trust Obama.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I got you –

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have read about him and he`s not – he`s not – he`s an Arab. He is not?

MCCAIN: No, ma`am –

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No?

MCCAIN: No, ma`am. No, ma`am. No, ma`am. He`s a – he`s a – he`s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that`s what this campaign is all about. He`s not, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Of course, Donald Trump is no John McCain. Donald Trump obviously still believes that John McCain was wrong when he said the President of the United States is a citizen of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You are not allowed to be a president if you`re not born in this country. He may not have been born in this country.

And I`ll tell you what, three weeks ago, I thought he was born in this country, right now, I have some real doubts.

I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they`re finding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have people now down there –

TRUMP: Absolutely –

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Searching, I mean, in Hawaii? –

TRUMP: Absolutely, and they cannot believe what they`re finding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Tana Goertz, the co-chair of Donald Trump`s presidential campaign in Iowa and a former contestant on “Nbc`s” “The Apprentice”.

O`DONNELL: Did you interpret Donald Trump`s answer tonight when that man said that the President is a Muslim and Donald Trump said right.

Did you interpret that to be, Donald, your candidate agreeing with that man`s statement?

GOERTZ: Absolutely not. I mean, that`s one of the disadvantages that Mr. Trump has when he doesn`t use teleprompters and he doesn`t tell his team that he needs to see all the questions before he gets them.

I mean, he is unscripted, unstaged, and he`s real. And when he said I like this guy, he probably was talking about he likes the way the guy is dressed.

It had nothing to do with I like this guy because I know what his question is going to be. No, absolutely not. He never was agreeing with what that gentleman was saying.

He was just taking the question and when he was like we`re looking into it, we`re looking into it. He was defusing what was – could potentially have been a disaster.

TRUMP: And a recent poll showed that 66 percent of Trump`s supporters believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Are you one of those 66 percent who believe that President Obama is a Muslim?

GOERTZ: No, I do not. I do not believe that and Mr. Trump probably does not believe that as well. And that is not – that was not part of the show.

That was not what he was looking for. That was a gentleman who was very unhappy with the country, just like Mr. Trump is and a lot of Americans are.

I mean, we – I know I`m hitting the streets and the voters are very frightened for where this country is headed and that`s why Mr. Trump is in the leading position because they want an outsider to take over the presidency and correct this and make America great again.

O`DONNELL: You said you think Donald Trump probably doesn`t think what this man said. Do you know if Donald Trump still believes that President Obama is a Muslim? Because that`s something that he publicly wondered about years ago.

GOERTZ: No, I do not know exactly. We haven`t had that discussion, no –

O`DONNELL: The –

GOERTZ: That is not something that I have to discuss –

O`DONNELL: The Trump – the Trump campaign issued a response to us when we asked for clarification from Donald Trump about whether he was expressing agreement with the questioner tonight there in New Hampshire.

And hit – this is the entirety of the Trump campaign`s response to that question, seeking clarification of exactly what candidate Trump meant tonight.

This is what the campaign said: “Donald Trump`s response simply means Christians – this is quote, “Christians need support in this country, their religious liberty is at stake.”

Tana Goertz, does that clarify for you whether Donald Trump agreed with the questioner tonight?

GOERTZ: That was enough for me, absolutely. We`re not here to talk about President Obama, we`re here to talk about what Donald Trump is going to do to make America great again.

He got his first question – you know, people are handing him land mines and people – I mean, I can`t expect a reporter to come in and handle himself in a professional manner.

We do not know if that was a plant. I mean, my goodness, I`ve –

O`DONNELL: Do you think –

GOERTZ: Been a part of this from day one, I see what the media is trying to do and it`s just not working because the voters decide.

And the voters are speaking and we saw the polls with “Newsweek” and “Time” and the “Drudge Report”. I mean, we saw what happened last night at the debate.

The voters are speaking. They are not going to allow the Washington insiders to make the decision for them. They`re making their own minds up.

O`DONNELL: Do you think –

GOERTZ: And –

O`DONNELL: Do you think –

GOERTZ: They like my candidate.

O`DONNELL: Do you think John McCain handled that same moment better eight years ago than your candidate did tonight?

GOERTZ: No, I`m not going to say better or worse. But I know Donald Trump very well. I actually know the man. I`m not just working for him, I know him well.

And Mr. Trump will not pretend to have a wonderful relationship with the President of the United States. He`s made it very clear, he does not like the way the government has been run.

He does not like the way our country is going and he blames that on our current president. And that is not a secret, that is not a surprise to anyone – so absolutely not.

I mean, Mr. McCain handled it the way he wanted to handle it, politically correct. Mr. Trump, the reason why he`s resonating so well is he is not saying the things that are comfortable, that are – that are easy to say and that are popular.

He`s saying the hard things. And guess what? The voters like what they`re hearing. They`re not swayed by some skew of how Mr. Trump acted towards a question that was about a president that he is not a fan of. That`s obvious.

O`DONNELL: And there was a second question like this from the audience. Let`s listen to this one and Mr. Trump`s response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I applaud the gentleman who brought up the Muslim training camps here in the USA, the FBI knows all about that.

TRUMP: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: So there was another opportunity, he`s being told by this questioner that he applauds the first questioner, and the only thing Donald Trump said about that was, “right”.

GOERTZ: Right, it`s called let`s move on, give me your question because I`m here, I`m not scripted, I`m not staged, I don`t know what you`re going to ask me, let`s talk about what I`m going to do to make America great again.

Yes, he is like a mover, let`s go, come on, like I don`t have time for that. Next, right, yes, let`s go.

O`DONNELL: When you –

GOERTZ: That`s – I mean –

O`DONNELL: When you`re with Donald Trump, can you ask him any question you want and talk about anything you want?

GOERTZ: Anything, absolutely.

O`DONNELL: Did you –

GOERTZ: We talk about anything, absolutely.

O`DONNELL: Did you ever get around to asking him what his detectives found in Hawaii since he promised to reveal that and to this day he`s never revealed a word of what he says his detectives –

GOERTZ: He`ll –

O`DONNELL: Found in Hawaii –

GOERTZ: Reveal it when the time is right. I have never had a care –

O`DONNELL: The time is not right, yet? –

GOERTZ: In the world about it.

O`DONNELL: When –

GOERTZ: Pardon me? –

O`DONNELL: When will the time be right to reveal? He said to Meredith Vieira that it was absolutely unbelievable what his detectives were finding in Hawaii four years ago.

He`s never told you about it, you`ve never asked him about it, it was unbelievable –

GOERTZ: I –

O`DONNELL: And you weren`t curious –

GOERTZ: Listen –

O`DONNELL: About it?

GOERTZ: Never was curious once because he`s not a liar, if they found something, it will come out, the time isn`t right, and guess what? Mr. Trump does what he wants and he`s not going to do it on our time.

He`s going to do it when the timing is perfectly strategic and it`s not now and it`s – it wasn`t the place for him to stay –

O`DONNELL: Will there ever be a right time to reveal what his detectives found about President Obama in Hawaii?

GOERTZ: That`s up to Mr. Trump, I don`t make those calls. I don`t make those calls and I`ve never had a care in the world because my focus is getting Donald Trump into the White House and I`ve got a laser focus on that goal and nothing else matters.

O`DONNELL: OK, and just to get – clarify one other thing. Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States? Do you believe he was born in Hawaii? –

GOERTZ: I do not know. Once again, I don`t care! I have –

O`DONNELL: No, but –

GOERTZ: Not a concern in the world about President Obama.

O`DONNELL: Do you –

GOERTZ: I honestly – when Mr. Trump said it, I went – you know what, stranger things have happened.

O`DONNELL: Do you believe the birth certificate that`s been revealed is fake? –

GOERTZ: And when all the birth certificate stuff came up, why didn`t he just produce the birth certificate.

O`DONNELL: He did. Do you believe –

GOERTZ: That was interesting –

O`DONNELL: The birth certificate is fake?

GOERTZ: I have not a clue. I really don`t know –

O`DONNELL: Have you ever looked at it?

GOERTZ: I – no – I`ve never looked at it, never looked at it –

O`DONNELL: OK –

GOERTZ: I – once again, my interest is not on President Obama. My interest is on Donald Trump. Mr. Trump is a smart man.

He`s got all of his facts and I thought – I actually appreciated that he was questioning that because there was a lot of Americans that were also thinking the same thing.

Once again, he does what`s not popular, that`s not comfortable, that is a little more uncomfortable to handle and he does the hard – he does the dirty work for Americans and that`s why he`s number one in the polls.

People love him because he is doing our work for us. And he is taking all the blows and all the punches and dealing with people like that, that are in his media forum.

And he`s handling it and he`s doing a great job. We couldn`t be more proud of Mr. Trump. And I`m hitting the streets here in Iowa, everyone loves him.

O`DONNELL: Tana Goertz, co-chair of Donald Trump`s campaign in Iowa, thank you very much for joining us tonight, really appreciate it –

GOERTZ: You`re welcome.

O`DONNELL: Joining us now –

GOERTZ: Thank you –

O`DONNELL: Eugene Robinson and Stuart Stevens who was a campaign manager, Mitt Romney`s campaign last time around.

Stuart, quickly, before we got to go to a break – but Donald Trump does the dirty work. That`s what they love about him.

STUART STEVENS, POLITICAL CONSULTANT & FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR MITT ROMNEY: Let`s hope not. Listen, I find Donald Trump as a businessman, someone you can admire.

He`s paid a lot in taxes, he`s given a lot to charity, he`s done a lot of good things here in New York. I find him as a presidential candidate sort of ridiculous.

And I don`t think he`s going to be the nominee of the Republican Party.

O`DONNELL: All right, we`re going to come back with more, we got to take a quick break here. Also coming up, the professor and the politician Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina are (AUDIO GAP: 00:03:14-18) later.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: We have now a new response from the Trump campaign about whether candidate Trump agreed with his first questioner tonight in New Hampshire who said that President Obama is a Muslim.

Here is that new response from the campaign: “To be clear, Mr. Trump`s response to the question regarding training camps in this country was we will look into it.”

Gene Robinson, does that clarify for you what Mr. Trump was thinking when he was hearing about President Obama? –

EUGENE ROBINSON, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: That is personally not clear, right? I mean, I don`t know, I don`t – I have no idea what that`s supposed to mean.

That was only part of the questioner ever called, you know, the whole – like, he`s a Muslim thing. So –

O`DONNELL: All right –

ROBINSON: No –

O`DONNELL: A quick break, we`ll see if there`s another response during this commercial break from the Trump campaign about what he really meant tonight. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: OK, this man, I like this guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Amen, OK? We have a problem in this country, it`s called Muslims. We know our current president is one.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he`s not even an American.

TRUMP: We need this question –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Birth certificate –

TRUMP: This is the –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man –

TRUMP: First question –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That`s my question. When can we get rid of them? –

TRUMP: We`re going to be looking at a lot of different things. And you know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there.

We`re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Back with us tonight, Eugene Robinson, opinion writer for “The Washington Post” and an Msnbc political analyst, also with us, Stuart Stevens, columnist for “The Daily Beast” and former chief strategist for Mitt Romney`s presidential campaign.

He is the author of the new book “Last Season: A Father, a Son and a Lifetime of College Football”. Stuart, I`m going to just hold the book right here –

(LAUGHTER)

There`s the camera, there it is the camera –

ROBINSON: Yes –

O`DONNELL: But we`re going to –

(CROSSTALK)

We`re going to get to this book, but we`ve had this breaking news that we`ve got to talk about tonight. Gene, there it is, again, we shared –

ROBINSON: Yes –

O`DONNELL: That – we showed that moment, that Trump moment. And there`s been a lot of polling about who the Trump supporters are. A lot of Republican speculation about who they are. The first question out of the gate tonight –

ROBINSON: Yes –

O`DONNELL: Was one of 66 percent of Trump supporters –

ROBINSON: Yes –

O`DONNELL: Who believe that President Obama is lying when he says he`s a Christian.

ROBINSON: Right, so number one, it means, there are a lot of people out there who believe that because –

O`DONNELL: Yes –

ROBINSON: Donald Trump has a lot of supporters –

O`DONNELL: Yes, to be fair to Trump supporters, here`s the picture of the country you live in. Twenty nine percent of Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim, 54 percent of Republicans think that President Obama is a Muslim, 66 percent of Trump supporters.

ROBINSON: That`s stunning to me, especially, like seem to recall there`s a certain Christian Pastor who got into a whole lot of trouble a few years ago.

But you know, be that as it may, the reason Trump`s reaction is so interesting is, you know, the question of how calculated was it?

I mean, is the voice inside his head saying, I have to kind of roll with this because this is my base, these are my peeps. I cannot alienate these people by telling the truth –

O`DONNELL: Let`s just – let`s just pause inside that moment for a second because in the – in the thinking exercise that you`re doing right there, you are presuming that inside Trump`s head, he knows what he just heard is crazy as opposed to inside Trump`s head –

ROBINSON: Well, that`s true –

O`DONNELL: He actually thinks that is right –

ROBINSON: I made that leap –

O`DONNELL: And all the –

ROBINSON: I made that leap –

O`DONNELL: Public evidence indicates he thinks that`s right.

ROBINSON: Well, I made the leap.

O`DONNELL: That`s –

ROBINSON: I made the leap.

O`DONNELL: But yes –

ROBINSON: Yes, but no, you`re right –

O`DONNELL: Even if he thought, hey, I was only kidding about it –

ROBINSON: Right –

O`DONNELL: He knows he can`t back off because his record on it – his verbal record is so wrong.

ROBINSON: Right, because he knows that the political establishment and indeed all reasonable people would expect him to do something like what John McCain did.

Right, he knows that`s certainly the more acceptable thing to do. He`s coming off of a pretty bad night last night, or not a great night last night, and he`s got to be thinking about his standing, how does he get his momentum back?

So, he had a choice, right? He could have gone one way or the other, and he decided to go that way.

O`DONNELL: It does seem historically when you look at the numbers and you look at the 66 percent of the supporters believe this, that if he had done anything, any kind of correcting, he would have lost some votes there tonight.

STEVENS: Listen, I think this is – it`s difficult running for president. You`re beginning to see Donald Trump run up against reality. It was a – it`s a dumb thing to do.

And I don`t think he`s that calculating about it, I just don`t think he knows any better well as a candidate. And you can`t let somebody say something like that and not correct it.

It`s sort of candidate 101. And I think that most candidates –

O`DONNELL: Right –

STEVENS: Everybody else on that stage last night would have known that and would have said something. And it`s just – you know, Donald Trump has been fun.

He`s been having fun, and it`s always fun to hang out with people who are having fun. I think as this thing goes on, he`s going to have less fun and I think that, that will draw less people.

And I think that there will be a process where you begin to look at him as a serious presidential candidate, which I don`t think has happened yet. And when it does, I think the guy is going to lose a ton of support.

O`DONNELL: During our break, you said something about the Muslim training camps in America and where they really are.

STEVENS: Well, it`s so incredibly offensive to talk about Muslims in that way. I mean, they`re as American as we are.

And if Muslims are being trained here in the United States army, they`re being trained at Camp Pendleton, they`re being trained at Fort Bragg.

They`re out there dying for Americans.

ROBINSON: Yes –

STEVENS: It`s so offensive to begin to divide people like that. And you just cannot be a candidate for president of the United States and allow that sort of divisiveness to be public without taking a stand.

You just can`t. You`re not going to be a serious candidate of the United States of America with that letting something like that go –

O`DONNELL: We haven`t gotten your official guess yet on this program, but where you think Donald Trump`s ceiling is in the Republican vote in these polls? –

STEVENS: And where he is now. So, I mean, I think that, that shows that there`s a certain number of people who are drawn to a guy named Donald Trump.

And they don`t know much about Donald Trump. It`s very different than Bernie Sanders voters. Bernie Sanders voters know a lot about Bernie Sanders in part because Bernie Sanders has been saying the same, you know, thing for 40 years.

And these are not very informed voters about Donald Trump. And I think one question to ask yourself is, I mean, going through these whole process. Could this person be elected governor of this state?

Could Donald Trump be elected governor of Iowa? I don`t think so. Not as a Republican nominee.

I don`t – unless there was some freak circumstance like Jesse Ventura with three people running and you know, he gets the bank shot.

Could he be elected governor of New Hampshire? I don`t think so in a million years. He`s not like anybody else. He`s been elected governor in these states.

Could he be elected governor of South Carolina? No, I mean, he couldn`t be more different than Graham who`s, you know, tremendously popular – just got re-elected, but huge numbers.

O`DONNELL: All right, we`re going to have to take a break here, stay with us. Up next, Carly Fiorina versus the professor. The professor will join us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The head of the Yale Business School Jeffrey Sonnenfeld wrote a paper and suddenly, one of the worst tenures for a CEO that he has ever seen, ranked one of the top 20 in the history of business.

The company is a disaster and continues to be a disaster. So, I only say this, she can`t run any of my companies. With that, I can tell you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miss Fiorina –

FIORINA: You know –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to give you a chance to respond.

FIORINA: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a well-known Clintonite and honestly had it out for me from the moment that I arrived at Hewlett-Packard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: That was last night at the Republican debate and tonight in New Hampshire, Donald Trump said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, with Carly, she did a terrible job at Lucent. She did a terrible job at Hewlett-Packard, terrible job. Stories have been written that are legendary.

The head of the Yale Business School, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, you know who he is, right? He wrote a story that was so brutal. And I mean, people are going to have to read this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Joining us now, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at Yale School of Management. Professor Sonnenfeld, I`m so sorry to have to give your accurate title.

Donald Trump has promoted you to the head of the Yale Business School, but, you know, we`re just –

JEFFREY SONNENFELD, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR LEADERSHIP STUDIES, YALE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: Lawrence, thank you so much, it tells me no good.

Last week was Chuck Todd on “Nbc” on “Meet the Press”, he promoted me to the Dean of the law school.

(LAUGHTER)

I`m waiting for med school, my mom is not around anymore to see that happen. But I – we – who knows where this career could go.

O`DONNELL: You`re going to have to get that promotion at Yale, I just can`t help you with this, even though Donald Trump thinks he can.

So, I – and by the way, I love that he`s speaking to an audience in New Hampshire who believe that President Obama is a Muslim and he`s sure that they all know who the – who –

SONNENFELD: You know –

O`DONNELL: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is –

SONNENFELD: That`s the last block, and we don`t need to get into that. And I`m not here to defend any of the misogyny, the belief and (INAUDIBLE) or any of the things that may come out randomly on the campaign trail.

But you do know that, still, even now, 45 years after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin, we still have 6 percent of this country without even Donald telling us this, don`t believe we ever landed.

You know, there are a lot of strange things – that is like 27 million people do not believe where we are really – so there are weird conspiratorial thinkers out there that cannot blame it all on this man. And, I do not know that he is prepared to know – you know from your whole career, Lawrence, you know how to always deal with that drunk in the back of the room. You would think he does.

John McCain does know that. And, some of these other people in the stage last night, regardless of their ideologies, they are trained to know how to handle responsibly the crowd. I do not think that is something that has been in his background before. He is not used to. He is used to large forums and not the open mic Q&A. It is not his normal format.

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST OF “THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL” PROGRAM: Well, he is the most experienced stage performer who has run for president in the television age. So, I think –

SONNENFELD: It is all scripted, though.

O`DONNELL: But, let us get to Carly Fiorina, because he is right. You did write one of the definitive analyses of her business career recently, specifically in relation to her presidential campaign.

And, I want to show an ad in her last and only political campaign she was in running for senate in California. I want to show this ad to show how her business career was used against her by Barbara boxer. And, this led to her decisive defeat. Let us watch this.

BARBARA BOXER, (D) CALIFORNIA, JUNIOR U.S. SENATOR: I am Barbara Boxer and I approved this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Professor Sonnenfeld, score that ad for us on accuracy.

SONNENFELD: It is 100 percent accurate. I only score it for being too mild. It should be a lot harsher. Carly Fiorina, she is not one of the rogue CEOs, a dozen years ago that was plundering shareholder wealth and some of whom actually wound up in jail. No. She – you know, she is a hardworking, very smart as we saw last night, very articulate person.

Maybe she would be a good person, a great press aide for some reasonable candidate, but she should not be coming from this incredibly disastrous career in the business world without any exoneration, contrition, redemption and then suddenly to be the leader of the free world. There seems to be like there should be some steps in between to prove yourself.

It is telling that ten years after she was fired, she has never gotten a job offer anywhere to be a chief executive of any company. If the board was wrong, if the shareholders were wrong and most of shareholders were initially against that, it will faded compact deals.

The employees were wrong, analysts were wrong, OK, ten years later nobody has offered her a job. It was a very misguided career. Dispositionally, though, she is unsuited. She does not listen to constructive feedback or anything. She equates dissent with disloyalty.

Maybe she should be running for office in Russia or China. But, she is not open to the idea of a leader has to learn, from maybe you get things wrong. But, it was always like the Queen of Hearts, “Off with your heads.” Platoons of lieutenants dismissed for challenging her. Nothing that she ever did that she admit was wrong.

What she did, she sliced shareholder wealth in half. The company`s worth half of what it was, five years after she was there. And, she was rewarded with $100 million for being there. Now, she deals with political reporters most of the time, Lawrence and not business reporters.

So, when she talks about how she stapled together some worthless pieces of castoff companies, compact digital equipment things and doubled the size of the company. Who cares? Triple it, quadruple it. She made people poorer for what she was doing, and she made herself richer. That is the story.

And, she said, “Oh, the whole industry was off then. The S&P 500 were only down 7 percent those five years.” She said, “Well, tech industry was off, and she is selectively give you Intel or Cisco.”

Well, Apple was soaring there. They are up threefold at that time. Dell would have more than double. – Google had already gone public during those five years. Facebook kicked off. I mean there was plenty going on in technology that was good stuff in this country, but not things that she was leaving.

O`DONNELL: OK. Quickly before we go. One other conspiracy Fiorina note -- or Carly Fiorina says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a Clintonite. What is your relationship to Bill and Hillary Clinton? When was the last time you were hanging out with them?

SONNENFELD: As you know, I think Paul Begala and James Carville, the Stephanopoulos, we rather surprised, and I do not know where to send my invites. I have never – sadly never been invited to be part of the team of advisers there.

I have worked in recent weeks for no compensation four different republican candidates, given them some ideas about how to make whatever their respective messages are a little bit better just so we have a constructive discourse taking place in this silly season.

But, I call the candidates, I vote for how they are. This is why she was a terrible CEO. When she gets these questions, what does she do, Lawrence? She does what happens so often when somebody is an honest messenger, she shoots the messenger.

Why does not she address the issues? She says, “My data is wrong. Bring that up.” But, instead, it is always an effort to discredit somebody, who is bringing up something that she does not want heard. And, that is what makes her a bad CEO and that is why she has never gone through this redemption. You know, she was on the board of national – of the Taiwan semiconductor and she only showed up for 17 percent of the meetings.

O`DONNELL: All right, we are going to have to leave it there tonight with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, soon to be the head of the Yale School of Business if Donald Trump has his way.

SONNENFELD: I do not say that.

O`DONNELL: But he is currently the senior associate dean for leadership studies at Yale School of Management. Thank you very much, Jeffrey.

SONNENFELD: Thank you.

O`DONNELL: Thank you. Coming up. Hillary Clinton takes on Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders with a little bit of help from Jimmy Fallon.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, come on, Donald. America was built by people who came here. They worked their hearts out for a better life. And, you are trying to stop them.

I mean, do you have any idea what it is like to work so hard for something, to be so close to getting it then someone pops out of nowhere and tries to take it all away?

FALLON, AS DONALD TRUMP: Are you talking about Bernie Sanders?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

FALLON, AS DONALD TRUMP: Look, I hate to say this, but I think he is losing his hair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Joined now by Austan Goolsbee, a former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama and current professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Also with us, Eugene Robinson and Stuart Stevens. Hillary Clinton obviously trying to loosen up and Jimmy Fallon is a perfectly good first stop location to try to do that.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FMR. CHAIR COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: That is what I thought. She seemed to be having a good time. And, it was good to see her having a good time. It was unfortunate that it seemed to be leaked to the press that the plan was to be spontaneous. But, boy, once you got to kind of passed that, I thought, appearances like this not in the normal political setting seem like a good idea at this point in the silly season.

O`DONNELL: And, also Gene, in any campaign, there always somebody, everyday, saying, “Hey, should not we be doing these other kinds of things and showing him looking like a real dad?” That kind of talks in every campaign all the time.

EUGENE ROBINSON, COLUMNIST AT “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Yes. Look, I think you have to do it – It is that she is going to have fun and everything. Obama is a hard act to follow in this – he had really, really good comedic timing.

He has shown it year after year at the correspondence dinner and the great iron and other places and on the talk shows. He is just really good at it. He set the bar pretty high for presidential candidates, I think.

O`DONNELL: And, Stuart, also on the republican side with Trump, with Carly Fiorina, there is this sensation of these are unprotected candidates. And, Fiorina goes boldly in certain directions that really excites republican audiences. And, so when you are on that same playing field, it seems like you got to come up with something.

STUART STEVENS, AUTHOR OF “LAST SEASON”: Well, look, I think these kind of late night shows are something that campaigns now feel like they have to do. They are mandatory. They are like they have to do it with triple axel. I do not think it really matters. In the – Hillary Clinton is not win or lose, whether or not she is fantastic.

O`DONNELL: Do they do these shows for the press? Is that who they are doing them for? So that the observers out there and columnists will say, “Oh, well, you know, she showed something.”

STEVENS: Well, I think part of it is most candidates enjoy these shows.

O`DONNELL: Yes. There is that.

STEVENS: And running for president is so grueling and in many way, so boring and so predictable. And, has that one day the same as the next, a ground hog quality. To do something like this, if Hillary Clinton looks like he is having fun, she probably is having fun. I mean, you know, it is a lot better than like, you know, one more factory tour.

O`DONNELL: And, Austan –

GOOLSBEE: You know, the other thing about these shows –

O`DONNELL: Go ahead.

GOOLSBEE: – is that, at this point, though in our world, people are paying close attention to the republican debates to what is happening in democratic primary. Most people are not paying any attention, even in Iowa and New Hampshire. They are only starting to pay attention.

And, so at this point, Hillary Clinton has found out, she has rolled out major policies and they got, you know, maybe an hour of attention by the press and by the next day, they were on to the next thing.

So, at this point in the campaign, it probably makes sense to go out to people who are not watching political shows and try to just get some attention and get them looking at you.

O`DONNELL: Austan, what about the challenge that Hillary Clinton has in this campaign season where she represents basically the Democratic Party establishment view of economic policy including especially this time around trade policy. And, there is Bernie Sanders out there completely opposed to the transpacific partnership. Hillary Clinton is linked to that inextricably. That is a difficult spot at this point in the primary season.

GOOLSBEE: It might – that maybe a fair point. I do not actually think the transpacific partnership has gotten that much attention by the general public. I think Bernie Sanders message is kind of generally anti-establishment, but is mostly focused on income inequality and issues like that.

And, on the republican side, there are a bunch of other populist kind of issues that Donald Trump is promoting on immigration and others. So, I do not think that it is really that uncomfortable on any specific policy issue because there has not really been that much policy.

O`DONNELL: Gene, Hillary Clinton is the most careful candidate out there.

ROBINSON: Yes.

O`DONNELL: And, there is the good of that and then there is the bad of that in this craving of spontaneity that people want in these campaigns.

ROBINSON: Right. You know –

O`DONNELL: I mean, you want a careful president.

ROBINSON: Stuart can correct me, but what I am going to say is that a candidate has to be himself or herself. And, trying to be something else for Hillary Clinton, trying to be not careful is probably a mistake.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

ROBINSON: She is who she is and she has to be who she is.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

ROBINSON: Is that right or wrong?

STEVENS: Well, I think the – do you have people around you who are reminding you of your deeply held believes. I think that really goes to this core question.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

STEVENS: Bernie Sanders, you may hate the guy. You know what he stands for, you know.

O`DONNELL: Yes. He does not need anyone to remind him.

STEVENS: And, he have been saying the same thing for 40 years.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

STEVENS: I thought that the worst moment that Hillary Clinton had was on keystone. And, then we have debated keystone pipeline in this country. The people who could not read and write can now write essays on it. And not to be able to take a position on that. I think just was sort of a moment that sort of paralyzed that campaign and showed how it was paralyzed.

O`DONNELL: But, that the prize of being so careful. That is one of those things about it. Austan Goolsbee, Eugene Robinson, thanks for joining us. Stuart, stick around, we are going to talk about.

I am going to hold this up again this book right here. Let us get that book back on T.V. Also, another book coming up here. The man who wrote the book on Donald Trump will join us. The author of that new book will be here.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: Stuart Stevens` new book is “The Last Season: A Father, A Son and A Lifetime of College Football.” Walter Isaacson says this about the book, “Through the lens of college football, Stuart Stevens has produced a poignant tale of father, sons, race and growing up in the South during the late 1960s. Besides being a delightful read, it is a reminder of the joy of relishing what is meaningful in life.”

Stuart, like me, you are a real writer before you became a political hack. And, when the Romney campaign ended the way it did, you were kind of wondering what should I be doing now and you went back to what you have always done. Writing of this kind.

STEVENS: Yes, it was losing – I think – it is prompt to think a lot more about your life. And, certainly, if Romney had won, I would not have gone into the government. But, it was a chance to stop and think. And, my father was turning 95.

And, so,we took that following fall and we went to all of the all of the Ole Miss football games together. And, that is sort of the spine of this book. It was a wonderful chance to reflect and to write about growing up.

O`DONNELL: And enlighten this up, and tell us about your mother`s Barack Obama bumper sticker.

STEVENS: My mother – yes, you know, I think she probably would have testified against me in a war crimes trial. She very much was a great on Barack Obama. But, she said she always likes who I work for. And, she liked Mitt Romney and they met on a couple occasions. And, you know, he find her charming and she found him charming. But, she is very graciously, when we were meeting mitt offered to take her bumper sticker off.

(LAUGHING)

O`DONNELL: Did she take the bumper sticker off?

STEVENS: No, I told her it was not necessary.

O`DONNELL: OK. Good. That is the Stuart Stevens – I knew you would tell her she did not have to do that. Stuart Stevens, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

STEVENS: Thanks.

O`DONNELL: The book is “The Last Season.” Another book, next. The latest biography of Donald Trump. This is the one that told you that Donald Trump feels like he was in the military because he went to a military-themed high school. That is this book next. That is next.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIOP)

TRUMP: When CNN did its poll recently, they had a couple of different categories. One, was leadership. In leadership I win like, forget. Not even a contest. So much higher than everybody else like two or three.

I do not know. They had all these cameras going. They can tell you. But leadership, way through. The other one is a little thing called the economy and jobs. Nobody – nobody close. The only thing they did not love was my personality. Can you believe it?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: That was Donald Trump tonight in New Hampshire. His personality, personal history and business history were the subjects of the new book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and The Pursuit of the Success” by Michael Dantonio.

Michael Dantonio joins us now. This is the book where we learned recently that Donald Trump believes or feels he is essentially a military veteran because he went to a high school, where they had to wear uniforms.

MICHAEL DANTONIO, AUTHOR OF “NEVER ENOUGH”: Well, right among many other things. He takes his personal experience and expands it to fit his needs at any given time. So, if we are going to discuss the military, he is going to say he is a military man because he – as he said, dealt with the people.

O`DONNELL: And, we saw this episode in New Hampshire tonight, where someone stands up and says to him, “The president is a Muslim” and, of course, Trump appears to agree with him.

And, Trump has not issued any statements saying, I disagree with him. You chronicle exactly how Trump went through that whole birther period including you have in the book, this moment in the O`Reilly Factor with Trump in 2011. Let us look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He may have one, but there is something on that person, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim, I do not know. Maybe he does not want that – or he may not have one. But, I will tell you this, if he was not born in this country, it is one of the great scams.

BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST OF “THE O`REILLY FACTOR” PROGRAM: Absolutely. But, I do not think that is the case.

TRUMP: Well, I mean, you know – but I am starting to think –

O`REILLY: I do think you believe that, either.

TRUMP: Two weeks ago –

O`REILLY: I think it is –

TRUMP: Two weeks ago –

O`REILLY: You get a lot of attention raising the question, but I do not believe you believe it.

TRUMP: Two weeks ago, I felt like probably he was born in the country. Today, it is possibly. I am telling you it has changed.

(LAUGHING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Four years ago, maybe he is a Muslim. Tonight in New Hampshire, someone jumps in and says he is. President Obama is a Muslim. Donald Trump has no disagreement with that.

DANTONIO: Well, it is amazing, he stays in character.

O`DONNELL: Yes.

DANTONIO: I often compare him to a magician, who will not give away his secrets. This is a fellow who refuses to break. So, when he said this, I am sure he was aware of the evidence that conflicted with his claim, but he is going to pursue it anyway.

And, it is sort of like the big lie theory. You know, lots of people think you might be X, Y and Z. I have heard over here that you might be a Martian. You know, you might be. People say that. How am I to refute that? It is an impossible thing.

O`DONNELL: And, the book tracks him throughout his life and what we have been wondering about on this show is how did this person become this person? This is the book where we discover him saying to you, because we spent a lot of time before he banned you because you talked to one of his enemies.

DANTONIO: Yes, one person he did not like and I was done.

O`DONNELL: Yes, you are banned. But, he says in here, he tells a story, he basically feels he was the same he was when he was in the first grade.

DANTONIO: Right, when he was 6 years old.

O`DONNELL: Which is what we have all been saying.

DANTONIO: Exactly. That is –

O`DONNELL: He behaves like a first grade.

DANTONIO: That is when his character was formed. So, you have to imagine the kid who wants to stay up till 8:30, but he asked you to stay up till 9:30 and, when you say 8:30, he got what he wanted. It is the same techniques over and over again. So, it is negotiation. It is pressing the limits of everything and then backing off a little bit if he gets what he wanted.

O`DONNELL: Would you describe him as being more like his father or more unlike his father? His father did not – had a lot of buildings, big real estate magnet in New York. He did not plaster his name everywhere.

DANTONIO: No, he was worth $200 million though in the 1970s. And, there are some people who speculate that if Donald had just put that money in the market, he would be worth almost as much as he claims he is worth now. But, he had to lose billions, make billions back just to churn in activity.

I think Fred Trump, his dad was a far more modest person. You go around Queens, everybody loved him. And, they actually say, you could not get him to put his name on something. Donald is the opposite.

O`DONNELL: What about his mother? Was she encouraging him in this grandiose notion of himself.

DANTONIO: I think a little bit. He describes her as an extremely dramatic personality. And, one of his great memories of her is watching Queen Elizabeth`s coronation, every moment of it. She was enthralled, which for a Scottish woman was pretty unusual.

O`DONNELL: And here we learned that he modeled his second wedding on that coronation.

DANTONIO: Right. Nothing is ever a mistake with this guy.

O`DONNELL: Michael Dantonio, thank you very much for joining us, tonight. Chris Hayes is up next.

END

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